


Sociopath

by veLOLciraptor



Series: Back in the Black [3]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: M/M, Serenity RPG System
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-27
Updated: 2012-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-31 20:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/347900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veLOLciraptor/pseuds/veLOLciraptor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Viktor never realized how broken Larem really was.</p><p>A post-campaign story about the (mis)adventures of Larem and Jack in their new-found life. Original characters in the Firefly/Serenity universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sociopath

**Author's Note:**

> For this third drabble I wanted to do something different. So I did. Poor kids.

Viktor always thought Larem was perfect.

He's beautiful. In the way that no man has any right being. All long legs, high cheekbones and dark lashes. And with the razor-sharp frame mind to put all of those things to work for him whenever he wanted. 

He's maddeningly intelligent. Nearly enough to make Viktor hate him, nearly. With one calculated glance Larem seems to be able to know where you've been and where you're going. After a week on the ship he was officially banned from any and all card tables in a unanimous decision by the crew, and to this day no one actually knows whether his success was due to a brain able to calculate miniscule probabilities or the ability to hide any and all signs of cheating.

And he was irresistible. The only thing better than the first time Viktor saw Larem, was the first time he had Larem. And the times after that.

Viktor had always thought Larem was perfect. A pristine work of art that had somehow fallen into his hands.

Viktor could still remember the exact day he realized how naive he'd been.

It had been two weeks after one of their biggest jobs: a heist that had been planned by Larem's intellect and executed by Jack's unique set of almost inhuman skills. However, no amount of Larem's foresight could avoid the inevitable heat that would fall down on their heads after the security of a top alliance bank vault was suddenly compromised. In fact, it was he who suggested that they lay low for a while.

And while “laying low” with Larem on the ship was probably the best “laying” he'd even done before, there is only so much time men can spend ship side before they start to go a little soft between the ears. When Larem finally let up on their enforced exile there was almost a unanimous decision as to the crew's destination.

He could even remember the name of the place: Sal's. A grease-ball tavern well out of alliance's sphere of attention, yet large enough that the presence of ten or twelve new faces wouldn't set off any towny suspicions. Looking back on it, Larem must have chosen it for just that reason.

There was no doubt everyone was happy to get off the ship. Finally. Probably a little too happy: Viktor wouldn't have been so eager for a fight otherwise. His gut still squirms a bit when he thinks about it. Some part of him admits that he started that fight to impress the pale, raven haired boy with the single green eye. As if to prove to that Viktor could protect the perfect, glass statue that he'd made his.

What bullshit.

It should have been nothing. Just a little bar brawl between (relatively) decent folk. The kind of fight where everyone ends up sharing a drink at the end of the night anyway while a few minor injuries were nursed.

Viktor still remembered the kid's name. Freddy. Freddy O'Connell. He'd broken Viktor's nose with a wide hay maker. Shouldn't have even hit him. He was out of practice.

The fight didn't last long after that. Things slowed quickly to halt when so much blood showed up on the warped wooden floorboards. Funny thing about facial wounds, they gush like rivers.

Larem took him back to the ship to get bandaged up. Damn good at patching people up. Viktor sometimes wondered why a boy ten years his junior knew so much of the medical trade, but had always shrugged off his suspicions because Larem's talents were too useful to question.

Every member of the crew slept soundly that night. All but one. Viktor should have known something was wrong when Larem insisted on retiring to his own room, even after a teasing comment from Jack asking if he was “finally too sore?”

Viktor was grateful for rest when he was woken early the next morning. The mayor, the sheriff and a gathered posse of gun-toting men desired words with the captain of the foreign ship. Freddy O'Connell was found that morning with single bullet wound through the head. He was dead, and neither the sheriff nor the undertaker could manage to find the bullet what done it.

They left as soon as the sheriff begrudgingly admitted to having no proper evidence to detain them.

Viktor's feet took him to his destination even before his brain began to process the situation.

“What did you do?”

Larem's hands moved slowly over the pistol in his lap: laying it out on a cloth in pieces. Disassembled and dissected for cleaning. He slowly turned to look back at Viktor with that single, emerald eye but said nothing.

“I had to let a Sheriff on board a ship full of stolen contraband.” His voice wanted to scream. More than that, he didn't want to talk about the practical side of this at all but he couldn't take this in, not yet. Better to start with something easier.

“Yet that Sheriff had no proper case against you or anyone on your ship.” Larem's voice was cool, calm and smooth. Everything that Viktor's wasn't. His hands began to reassemble the new-age colt pistol, and Viktor watched as long, pale fingers slide five bullets back into it. A sixth case still lying on the cloth in Larem's lap.

“A gorram man died!” Viktor took a heavy step forward, his hands shaking into tight fists at this sides.

Larem slid the gun and the fired bullet off of his lap and onto his bed.“Why are you telling me what I already know?” He stood.

“You killed him.”

“And I most definitely know that as well. As do you.”

Viktor stared. “You're not even going to deny it?”

Larem scoffed, a confused smile spreading across his face. “Why would I? We only needed to prove that to the Sheriff and Mayor.”

Viktor's mind reeled and he found himself stepping closer to Larem despite the fact that it was as if he was seeing him for the first time. “You killed a man.”

The smile on his pale, beautiful, terrible face shifted. Looking as though he'd found the answer to the question he'd wordlessly posed previously. “I see.”

Viktor watched as Larem changed in front of him. He moved far too easily from stiff and matter-of-fact to a fluid confidence that Viktor recognized all too well. This was the Larem he'd spent those long two-weeks with, secluded in his room. This sensual, seductive Larem set his hands softly against his chest, folding his body into Viktor's with a practiced ease.

He rested his head against Viktor's chest and looked up at him through sinful dark lashes. “I'm sorry I killed him. You can be the protector again. I didn't realize that it would hurt your ego for me to-”

“What?!” Viktor pushed him away. Hard. 

Larem stumbled back, his body hitting the wall and slowly slumping down to the ground. Viktor watched. He must have forgotten how small Larem really was. But right now, he couldn't find himself to care.

“This isn't about my ego being hurt because you killed for me.” Viktor couldn't believe what Larem had said. What he'd done. “Why did you kill that boy?!”

He was yelling now.

Larem was no longer the suave, sensual creature he had been just moments before. He was flushed, his hair was disheveled from his fall and the way he held himself led Viktor to believe that he'd probably hit the wall with enough force to injure his left shoulder. Yet he still stared back at Viktor with complete, unquestionable conviction.

“He hurt you.”

That was when he knew that Larem was far from perfect. The day he realized that there was something definitively wrong about Larem. He wasn't just flawed like any other person. Viktor's perfect, pristine glass statue was cracked, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to know how deep the fractures went.


End file.
